


road music

by light_loves_the_dark



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Aged up Five, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Casey made me do it, Dark Number Five | The Boy, Dark Vanya, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Five is Not Good, I cannot underscore all the problems here, I mean, Manipulative Relationship, Mass Murder, Murder, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Possessive Behavior, Powerful Vanya Hargreeves, Pseudo-Incest, Sensory Deprivation, She likes Some Things, Smut, The Author Regrets Everything, There's consent but, Though Five's Age Should Probably Be the Least of Your Worries, Unreliable Narrator, Vanya Hargreeves Deserves Better, okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:14:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26450941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_loves_the_dark/pseuds/light_loves_the_dark
Summary: “The end of the world is championed by a group called the Commission,” Five says. “There will always be an apocalypse, and you will always be the cause.”Vanya eyes him carefully. She is still shaking, but she’s always been his smartest sibling. She’s clearly thinking, and if he was so inclined, he’d applaud her for it. “What’s your solution?”Five is gallant about it, actually. He gives her two choices.-aka the one where five finds about vanya’s powers while working for the commission and offers vanya a choice that isn’t really a choice at all. and, as casey so eloquently put it, maybe the world burns along the way.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 37
Kudos: 188





	road music

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lifeofsnark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeofsnark/gifts).



> yikes. YIKES. 
> 
> okay okay. this is really touchy, people, but i actually had a lot of fun/pain writing it. s/o to casey (lifeofsnark) for doing this exchange (check out her stuff!!). i would literally only do this for her bc her writing is basically the best thing ever (okay also i would probably do this for most fiveya writers but can you blame me? how is everyone in this fandom so GOOD?) 
> 
> anyway so the timeline here is off so sorry about that, but it takes place instead of s1. five is aged up - i picture him in his 30s. also the deaths are not the fam so don't worry. also the pace of this felt off to me?? idk five is an emotional mess so that's probably why, but i'm sorry if it jerks you around! 
> 
> title and quotes from richard siken! a god among poets. also full disclosure i stole a line from btvs BUT can you blame me?

_He could build a city. Has a certain capacity. There’s a niche in his chest_

_where a heart would fit perfectly_

_and he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place—_

_well then, game over._

-

He finds her walking home. In the dark. With no way to defend herself. 

There is a swell of a moment where he’s almost more angry at her than at the apocalypse. 

It passes swiftly with an extra modicum of thought. It doesn’t matter how many times she’s done this in the past. It’s over now. She will never be alone again.   
  
With that in mind, Five crosses the street, the distance between them eaten up with his wide, smooth strides. He’s quite good at sneaking silently, but he’s making no effort to do it now, and her lack of attention leaves him perturbed. Annoyed. He has to remind himself once more that the days of her solitude are over. 

He makes to grasp her hand, but thinks better of it. Takes her by the elbow instead. 

She barely has time to turn, her pale, pink lips wrapping around some kind of question, of fearful plea, but those sorts of things don’t work on him anymore. He does notice her pull her violin case back, like she might have eventually tried hitting him with it, and he is half-annoyed at the futility of that action and half-relieved she has some sort of fight or flight response. 

That’s what he wants, after all. Vanya’s instincts can win the invisible war he’s been fighting for over forty years. 

They land in an empty brown house, one he had scoped out for this very purpose. Their getaway car is already parked out front, and all he has to do is convince her of the correct course of action. 

Now, her violin case is on the floor, her hands clutching at nothing as she pulls her elbow from his. They’ve landed in an open concept entryway, empty with the exception of a single wooden chest and three, wide doorways leading to the rest of the house. Her eyes are wide, her mouth even wider. The vision fills his head with years of fantasies: thrusting his tongue in that mouth, winding his long fingers in that dark curtain of hair and pulling until he can press her down with the force of his kiss until her wide eyes flutter shut, until she stumbles, until he can follow her down, down, down… 

“Five?” Her voice breaks halfway through his name. She looks so terrified, so hopeful, and he presses down on the beast that roars inside of him. 

Less than thirty seconds with her, and he is already drowning. He shouldn’t have touched her. 

He blinks slowly, like a predator, and tugs the sleeve of his grey suit jacket up to reveal his tattoo. His power, of course, should be more than enough evidence, but he doesn’t mind driving the point home. She lets out a shuddering breath, looking up from the tattoo to his glittering, cold eyes, like she can find the brother she lost in his gaze alone. 

He is not that brother. Eventually, perhaps, but for now, he shapes his mouth into a smirk; there is no time for reunions. There is a war on his mind. 

“Vanya,” he greets, crisp and short even for his own standards. It does it’s job; she flinches, takes a step back to gain perspective. “I need you to listen, and listen carefully.”

“Where have you-” She begins, words tumbling from her throat like she can’t speak them fast enough.

“I _asked_ ,” he cuts her off, “you to listen.” He pins her with the coldest stare he can manage, and she stops, though she looks pained. After a moment, she gives him a reluctant nod. 

Five has thought about this moment for years. He had joined the Commission to stop the apocalypse, expecting to spend years tracking down the trigger of his endless nightmares. Only, by some strange stroke of luck, to find out through a couple, meaningless deaths that it is his dearest sister who impedes his goal. 

“Father lied,” he says, abrupt. He sees her open her mouth to ask a clarifying question, but think better of it, waiting for him to continue. _Good girl_ , he thinks darkly, before pushing his desire for her aside. It’s a herculean effort, but a necessary one. “You have powers,” he clarifies. “Catastrophic powers - I don’t know the details, but the basic theory is sound manipulation. The pills you take are not for anxiety; they suppress your natural talents. Two weeks from now, you stop taking them and cause the apocalypse.” He pauses. “Any questions?” 

She looks frozen, maybe like she isn’t even breathing. He can’t help but chuckle. “You haven’t changed, have you?” He asks, raising an eyebrow. “ _Breathe_ , Vanya.” She exhales almost instantly, and that darkness curls in his chest again. 

“That’s not possible,” she whispers, stumbling back against the nearest wall. She curls her fingers around the door frame leading to the sitting room, clutching at the white-painted wood until he can see chips of dried paint underneath her nails. He wants those fingers curled around his-

_Stop._

“That’s not a question,” he snaps, trying to calm the storm within him. “Don’t waste my time. We don’t have much of it.” 

She flinches, releasing the wall and looking down at her hands, picking out the chips of paint with her other nails. “I, uh, Five, wouldn’t I _know_ ?” Her hands are so obviously shaking; he wonders why she’s even trying to hide it from him. Doesn’t she know that he _knows_ her? 

“Unimportant,” he dismisses. “The question is what we do about it, and lucky for you, I’ve concocted a solution.” 

That gets her attention. She freezes and slumps, hands dropping listlessly to her sides. She looks up at him, something deep and dark and frightened in her expression. “You’re going to kill me,” she says, simple and soft. She doesn’t even look the slightest bit defensive, just remorseful. Like she’s sorry to make him commit sororicide. Like she just _accepts_ it. 

He inhales sharply, taking an unplanned step forward. She doesn’t back away, but she doesn’t stop looking afraid. He _hates_ it. “If you ever say something that stupid again, you won’t like the consequences,” he says, emotion rising in him like the beginnings of a tsunami. He needs to finish this and get out before he does something stupid, like shake her. Or kiss her senseless. Or pull her into the barren kitchen and fuck her across the granite island. 

“Then what? Does it stop because I know to take my pills?”

He tries to breath the anger out. It doesn’t work. “The end of the world is championed by a group called the Commission,” he continues tightly. “There will always be an apocalypse, and you will always be the cause.”

Vanya eyes him carefully. She is still shaking, but she’s always been his smartest sibling. She’s clearly thinking, and if he was so inclined, he’d applaud her for it. 

“What’s your solution?” 

Five is gallant about it, actually. He tells her she has two choices, and carefully outlines them both. 

“In the next week, I will wean you off your pills and give you a baseline of training. We take out the Commission,” he tells her. “No more oversight, no more apocalypse.”

Vanya’s eyes glaze over in thought. “How many people?” She asks finally. 

Five shrugs. “Several hundred, quite a few more if we take out everyone who knows about the Commission. Of course, once we eliminate headquarters, I can do the rest myself.”

Vanya looks vaguely sick. “Or...” she trails off, raising her voice in question. 

He assesses her posture, satisfied with her reaction. “I let you end the world, and we survive on the ruins,” he says simply. He smirks then. “I’m sure you’ll be reasonable.”

Vanya openly shudders, and he knows why. It’s clear that billions of deaths are not his focus. “And if I choose the first? What do we do after?” She asks. It’s a Hobson’s choice, and she knows it. She wants to know what he wants. _Smart girl._

Five grins at the question, allowing himself a brief moment to picture their perfect future. Just a moment, and he’ll refocus. “Whatever you’d like,” he says, indulgent. “Teach violin, play it, travel the world, retreat into the woods...”

Vanya smiles back hesitantly, taking a small step toward him. “Sounds nice..” she says. 

“With one caveat.” He pins her with his gaze. “Where you go, I go. After a short adjustment period, that will include our house, our room, our bed. I will have stopped the apocalypse, and you will be my reward. Am I clear?”

Vanya just stares at him.

He can afford a moment to show her what it’ll be like, so he softens. “I can be yours too, you know. I’ll listen, I’ll read to you, and I’ll make you happy.” His battered soul beats in his cage, but he doesn’t allow it out. 

Vanya swallows. He watches her realize that she has no choice, look at him, and also realize that he planned it this way. Then she sighs, and in the best moment of his life since he left her decades ago, she throws in her lot with him, her brother, a clear and obvious murderer, and nods. 

He knows she’s agreeing to stop the apocalypse. His sweet, heroic sister. But he also knows he cannot be happy without her, without the image of her that has kept him warm for decades. 

She’ll be his. And he’ll be able to feel again. 

-

Until the apocalypse is averted, Vanya is a weapon.

It’s a mantra he has repeated to himself every day since he learned about her powers, about her destiny. He cannot afford to pull any punches. She has to be manipulated, and quickly. 

Once he puts his hands on her in earnest, that paradigm will disappear. 

So he makes his touches mechanical. Restricted to necessity, which means he transports her to the cabin in the Catskills that he purchased for this very purpose and leaves her there while he takes care of things back in the city. She needs a few days to go through the withdrawal program he set up for her in a place where she can only hurt the trees and wild animals roaming the mountains. 

He needs a few days to cover their tracks and find Harold Jenkins. He’s going to make it quick and efficient, but then he finds the room full of pictures of the Umbrella Academy. And the wall of blurry pictures of Vanya. 

So he drugs Jenkins, ties him to a chair in his kitchen and waits. When he wakes, Five happily becomes a movie cliche, slowly rummaging through the kitchen in search of dull knives and rusty pliers. He rips off each of Jenkins’ fingernails, slow and methodical in the pursuit of an excruciating punishment for premeditation. It takes until the third fingernail for Jenkins to admit that he had just found the journal two days ago. It takes until the fifth for him to tell Five where it is, but Five takes all ten anyway, grinning all the while. He uses the dull knife to make several precise incisions, and then he sits back and watches Jenkins bleed out.

It’s not that Five particularly enjoys killing. It’s messy, for one. People are bloody and disgusting and sometimes they soil themselves when they have to contemplate their own mortality. He has no way of knowing what diseases they might have, the places they’ve been. And Five is good at his job, which means when he doesn’t have the time to make it look like an accident, he has to go through the post-mortem ritual of sawing down fingerprints and pulling out teeth and mutilating ears. His research shows that no one will be looking for Leonard Peabody, so it’s overly cautious, but this is the apocalypse. If anything deserves Five’s best work, it is this. 

Plus, that dark, dank room suggests that this pitiful excuse for a bag of flesh had plans to romance his sister. To take her insecurities and fears and trauma, gaslighting her until she explodes for his own purposes. It’s not that Five can’t see the irony; he also wants Vanya’s power to make his job easier. To drag her down into the abyss with him and make her realize that she belongs in the darkness with him. But it’s different; he has laid all his cards on the table for her. It’s not his fault that she had chosen him over the apocalypse. Those were always going to be the only two options. 

He’s the one who knows her. Her brother. Her sole confidant. He knows what is best for her. 

Four days later, she levels three acres of trees when he gives her the red book to read. It’s the first time she’s ever truly felt anything, and he has to swallow down the urge to push her down into the wreckage and mount her until she shares it with him. The rage. The betrayal. The desperation. He wants to feel them too; he wants to take her trauma and bind it to his own, to growl his fear into her neck as she takes all of him into her and doesn’t leave. 

The hot-blooded feral side of him roars, but the cold-blooded murderer brushes him aside. There will be time for all that. For them to fall apart together. 

All he wants is to see her lose control. But for now, he has to help her gain it. 

-

The Commission never really stood a chance. With one whispered command in his sister’s ear, she rises in the air, the woman melting into the weapon, glowing with a blinding, bright light. He cannot look away. 

She blinks, and the Commission explodes in a torrent of fire and glass. There’s a sort of afterglow, where he knows she is struggling to come down, but there scant days of training are enough for her to exhale, floating back to the ground.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, enjoying the way she shudders at his praise. God, he can’t wait to whisper those same words as he kisses his way up her body, to moan them as she goes down on him, peering up at him with those big, brown eyes. The need almost overwhelms him, but he exhales shakily, blinking away before she can say anything in return. There’s a job to do, and though Vanya’s role is complete, his is not. He appears in the ruins in a sizzle of blue heat, looking for stragglers. 

He finds some, of course. These are trained killers. They know how to find cover. Some probably saw their arrival on one of the many cameras and sought protection in the archives underground. It’s what Five himself would have done, so he starts there. 

He kills with little feeling, breaking necks, picking up guns as he goes and firing at will into the fray. He can taste blood on his upper lip after he slices one woman’s throat with a convenient letter opener, and when he darts his tongue out to taste it, he knows it’s not his. 

He spits out the metallic liquid and keeps going. 

He is gone again in a bright blue flash once he’s taken care of things, up to the main level where some personnel have safe rooms. He arrives in a flurry, ready to kill, but there’s no screams. No sign of life or movement. He blinks to just outside the Handler’s office, readying for a fight, only to walk into a scene he hadn’t expected.

Vanya, who is meant to be outside, _safe,_ is standing there, staring down at Dot. His annoyance at her deviation from the plan lasts mere seconds as he realizes she must be there to help him, and he has to breathe deeply to keep his heart rate down. He can’t see Vanya’s face, so he jumps quietly to another vantage point, ready for a show. 

“Please,” Dot is begging. “I’m just administration - I’ve never hurt anyone, please let me go.” 

Five’s chest tightens when he finally gets a good look at Vanya. Her eyes are glowing, and her hands are clenched into fists at her side. All the marks of rage. 

But when he looks closer, he doesn’t see rage. No, her lip is caught between her teeth. Her throat is working, like she wants to say something but doesn’t know how. Her glow is fading, pulsing, and she’s clenching her hands because they are clearly shaking. She looks _indecisive_. 

Oh no. That won’t do. 

Vanya looks up to him, because of course she does. She had told them during their short training that she can pick out his heartbeat in a crowd, the unique sound of his power in a labyrinth. The tempo of his heart never picks up beyond mild exertion, even when he is standing in a sea of bodies, and he had helped her learn to focus on him, to keep his heart in her mind when she needed to refocus. It makes him feel warm, the knowledge that she listens for his steady heart rate to center herself, and the knowledge that her control is possible because of his proximity gives him the ultimate satisfaction. The more things that tie them together, the less easy it will be for her to even consider leaving him. 

Five schools his face into a mask of certainty. “She’s lying,” he says, casually, sauntering forward. Dot’s shoulders slump, and she sits back onto her heels. She’s no idiot; she knows that if Vanya doesn’t kill her, Five will. 

Vanya’s breath hitches, her power fading in earnest. “Five…”

He tutts under his breath, shaking his head slowly as he advances. Dot keeps her back to him. He comes to a stop behind her, eyes never leaving Vanya. “Sweetheart, she wrote the apocalypse. She ended the world, the human race. Our _family_.” Here, he twists his fingers into Dot’s hair, yanking her head back in a sharp, painful movement, exposing her neck like a sacrifice. One more, he thinks. One more, and it’s over. “She deserves our rage.”

Vanya breaks their eye contact, looking down at a quivering Dot. “She can’t do anything, now,” Vanya reasons, blinking furiously, trembling nearly as hard as Dot herself. “There’s no agents, no building - if we let her go, she wouldn’t-”

“I won’t,” Dot breaks, tears spilling over her checks. “I’d just go, please, I’m sorry-”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Five snarls, kicking her in the side. “Vanya, if you end this, we can go home,” he says, softening his tone. 

But Vanya is shaking her head in earnest now. “No, it’s not necessary,” she argues. “The Commission - it was necessary, and we saved the world, but she’s just one person, Five, please-”

Five’s slight annoyance grows into anger. “Kill her. _Now_ .” They are so _close_. One more, and he can take care of her, can open up a little more, can stop treating her like a weapon and instead like the woman he loves. 

Vanya swallows. “No.” 

Five exhales. Shrugs. And then he brings up his free hand, glinting knife already at the ready, and cleanly slits Dot’s throat. The blood sprays onto the floor, onto Vanya’s shoes and the hem of her jeans. 

Vanya brings up her hands to cover her mouth at the sight. A reasonable reaction, Five thinks. Sure, she had used her power and probably killed more agents than he had in his second sweep, but nothing so intimate as this. It’s reasonable, but Five is still furious. 

“Are there anymore alive?” he grits out, still holding Dot up by the hair, keeping her body between them. 

Vanya shakes her head, but she is crying, and he has had enough. 

He drops Dot, stepping neatly over her. “Then it’s over,” he says, bloody hands reaching for his tie and stripping it off.

Vanya takes a step back, and he pauses, dark gaze intent on her. “She really…” She swallows, throat working. “The apocalypse was her fault. She… wanted it?”

Truly, Five doesn’t know. Dot has always been kind to him, quiet, toeing the company line. In fact, if he has to wager a guess, he’d say that Dot did not want to end the world. The Handler, maybe, but not sweet, soft spoken Dot. But Vanya feels guilt over it, and he doesn’t.

“Yes,” he says simply, but the anger and relief and emptiness at having no purpose anymore are rising within him. “And you could have been the hero to end it all.” Vanya’s eyes drop to the floor, but he wants them on him. He wants her eyes on him, her hands, and the idea that he can now spread her out like the buffet she is nearly freezes him with want. “But instead, you get to walk away with clean hands? Look at me, Vanya.” She does, taking in all the red covering him. Clotting in his hair. Drenching his collar. Staining his hands. “How is that fair, dear?”

Vanya exhales. “It’s not,” she says, small. “I’m sorry, Five.” 

He grins. “You know I’d forgive you anything. But there is something you can do to rectify this situation.” 

She looks at him, then at his tie on the ground, then at the way his whole body is angled toward her, like a lion leans toward a gazelle. That’s the way he feels at least. Feral. Animal-like. Ready to take his proper place in the world.

Atop his dear little sister. 

He waits, and his patience is paid off with her soft nod. 

He blinks in a wave of blue heat, appearing mere inches from her, cupping her face in his hands and tugging her up into a rough kiss. She is hesitant, and so he bites her lower lip hard, taking advantage of her involuntary gasp and thrusting his tongue into her mouth. After that, she kisses him back, uncertain but curious, and he moans into her open mouth. She tastes like sugary coffee and cinnamon and he loves it, but he wants her to taste like him, wants his touch to sink into her and bind them into one being forever. 

He discards his jacket, then her shirt, lifting her into his arms. His bloody oxford rubs against her bare chest, leaving crimson prints against her skin. She squirms at the sensation, and he squeezes her tighter. “Stop moving,” he orders, and she freezes against him. Even her mouth stops working against his, but he doesn’t care, moving down to her neck, rubbing his nose in the sweet sweat there. He tries to rub his cock, already achingly hard, in the cleft of her ass, but there’s not enough resistance. He blinks, and in a flash of blue, they’re on the ground. 

She looks slightly nauseous from the jump, so he graciously gives her a few moments to gulp in air as he trails his mouth down to her tits. They’re red and swollen, and he chuckles. “Oh, you like this, don’t you?” He rasps, scraping her nipples with his teeth. He unbuttons her pants, tugging them off and falling back onto her, thrusting his clothed bulge against her cunt. “You’re so hot,” he murmurs, “I can feel it against my cock. I bet you’re wet too - aching just for me. I’ll fuck you until you can’t think, sweetheart.” They’re only separated by two pieces of fabric, and the intensity threatens to overwhelm him. He’s spoiled for choice. “Tell me you like this,” he demands. “Tell me I can do what I want to you.” 

Vanya gasps. “I - I - _Five._ ” 

All the anticipation and fury and helplessness wells inside him. He presses down against her, swiping his thumb over her cheek, a sweet gesture ruined by the sticky crimson residue staining his hands. “C’mon, V. C’mon, sweetheart, tell me… admit it,” he breathes, something deep inside him clenching up. She has to be like him; she has to want it. She _has_ to. 

He fights to keep his heart rate steady, but the effort has his vision swimming and his breath shortening. This is all he’s ever wanted: the Commission dead, the apocalypse averted, Vanya in his arms as the result of a clear cut deal. One that she wouldn’t dare back out of, not now that they’ve saved the world. 

Why isn’t it enough? Why can’t he breathe? 

She looks… scared.

His conscience beats him over the head in an overwhelming rush. He climbs off of her, frantic and horrified, sitting back on his heels. She looks like a murder victim, blood and sweat all over her with her, marks from his lips and teeth all over her upper body. “Fuck. _Shit_. I-,” he rushes out, words breaking off as his brain short circuits. What does he even say? “I thought this - I wanted us to end it together.” He feels a little sick. “I couldn’t - without your -”

Vanya lays there, eyes studying him. She doesn’t look as scared as he thought, just concerned. But he’s too in his head to tell whether she’s concerned for him or for herself. “Tell me,” she says finally.

“Now?” He says, looking around them. He had such grand plans of touching her, fucking her, making her his after years of loneliness and yearning. But now she’s asking him to talk? 

Vanya shrugs, sitting up. She looks small there, only in her underwear, her long hair just barely covering her breasts. At least, she should seem small. To Five, it’s like she’s an entire galaxy, vast and unknowable and powerful, sitting half a foot from him and waiting for him to say words that he hasn’t picked out yet. “Yeah.” 

Five just looks at her for a long time, then: “I was in the apocalypse for over three decades.” That seems like the best place to start. Vanya’s eyes widen, but she waits, and Five has to swallow down the urge to praise her for it. “I fell in love there - Delores. She kept me sane. You would’ve liked her.”

“Someone else survived?”

“No.”

She pauses, then: “Okay. I bet I would’ve. What was she like?”

He smiles softly. “She reminded me of you. Quiet. A good listener. But she kept me grounded. When I was recruited to the Commission, I had to leave her behind.”

“What happened then?”

He sighs. “Then? I became a murderer. Innocents, women, children… whoever the Commission told me to eliminate, I did.” He pauses. “A part of me enjoyed it.” Vanya is silent. “Not all of them, but the ones who I decided were undeserving of life? The job was agreeable. Satisfying, even.”

“You didn’t take Delores,” she points out. “But you took my book?”

Five shrugs. “That book _was_ you _._ It was all I had left of you, all I had to remind me that my job was to get back to you and the others. Killing was a means to an end, and I can’t regret it.” 

“And now?” She asks. 

He sighs. “I’m tired. But I’ll never stop being capable of… this.” He gestures around them. 

Vanya reaches for his hand, and he lets her take it. “Neither will I,” she says softly. 

He looks up at her sharply. “Vanya,” he says hoarsely, “I want you. More than anything. I want every part of the ultimatum I gave you so badly that I would lie and cheat and kill to get it. Even to you.” He changes his grip on her hand, pulling her palm up to rest on his heart. “But it hurts me when you look scared, and that’s never happened before.”

“Five…” 

“I don’t know if I can ever let you go,” he adds, trying to convey his seriousness with steady eye contact, “but please don’t be afraid of me. I couldn’t stand it.” 

“ _Five_ , I love you.” 

Those words should end him. Overwhelm him. Turn him into something unrecognizable from the soulless monster he’s been for years, turn him to dust. He had to carve out his heart to survive, and he had kept it with Vanya, in the past, in the future, for safekeeping. Now that she is here, it’s back, but instead of her love overwhelming him the way her touch did, it allows him to breathe. The feeling isn’t too much; it feels _right._ Like something nebulous becoming tangible. Like being thrust underwater, and finding you can breathe. Like his heart had decided now is the best time to fall back into place.

Well. Game over. 

She lets out a half-hearted chuckle, eyes on the place where their hands are twined over his heart. “I don’t know… if this is right. Or okay. Or - god - ethical. But when you’re not here, ordering me around and taking care of me, everything is numb. And now, your heartbeat literally keeps me from blowing stuff up.”

Five almost tells her that the numbness is likely from the pills, but he doesn’t. He could tell her there are other ways she can focus, but he doesn’t. He’s laid himself bare enough, and he refuses to sabotage himself further. 

Vanya squares her shoulders, and if he weren’t so tense, he would think about how cute it is. “We’re covered in blood, and you just brutally murdered a woman because you were angry with me, but god, Five, all I want is for you to finish what you started.” 

“Are you sure?” He looks down at himself, still stained red. 

“I don’t mind,” Vanya says, shyly at first before she seems to gird herself, looking up into his eyes. 

“Vanya…” 

Vanya huffs a sigh. “Remember the woman? The one you said to watch out for?”

Five looks confused. “The Handler?” He says. “She must’ve died in your explosion.” 

Vanya looks away, then back at him. “That’s not what happened,” she says softly. Five just waits for her to continue, dark eyes intent on her. “While you were in the basement, I found her. She was scared, I think. Hiding behind the desk, in the office you pointed out to me on the blueprints.”

Five gapes at her. “You… went there on purpose?” 

Vanya nods. “I wanted to look her in the eye,” she admits. Heat crawls up Five’s spine. 

“And then? What did you do?”

“I tuned out your heartbeat.” Vanya smiles. “And I tuned into hers.” 

“She’s dead?” He has to clarify, hoarsely.

“For what she did to you,” Vanya says softly. “You killed the people that were going to torture me. I wanted… needed… to do the same.” 

A wave of heat slams over Five, and he moves to hover over her, pushing her back down to the floor, kissing her long and slow. “Oh yes, sweetheart.” They break apart, and Vanya gasps as he licks down her body, more gentle this time. He pauses with his mouth over her underwear-covered cunt, inhaling the scent of her “I think that deserves a reward.”

Vanya’s soft laughter is cut off when he presses his nose into the damp fabric, nudging her clit. “I thought punishment was on your mind,” she gasps, propping herself up on her elbows so she can watch him slide her underwear down with his teeth.

He looks up at her, surprised, then with an intoxicating mixture of amusement and arousal. “All in good time,” he murmurs. “First I want you to come with my tongue in you.” 

He makes good on his promise, winding her up easily, pressing down on her open thighs to keep her from squirming away from his tongue. The position keeps him from fingering her, but he doesn’t mind, licking and nibbling her clit until his mouth is filled with her cum. She has slumped to the floor, watching him with half-lidded eyes. He’s happy to put on a show, leaning back and reaching for his belt. She tries to get up then, to reach for him, but he lightly slaps her hip in warning. 

“Greedy little girl,” he murmurs, letting his hands rest on his belt. Her eyes zero in on them, and he grins. “I already gave you one orgasm,” he continues, watching as her eyes flick up to him and back to his waist. “And you want more? I’ve been dreaming about filling you up for decades, sweetheart. The sounds you're going to make. The way your eyes are going to go wide because you’ve never had a cock like mine inside that tight, little pussy. It might even be uncomfortable - I was going to go slow. But greedy girls don’t get _slow_.” He slides the belt out of the loop, deft and purposeful, sliding down the zipper and shoving his pants down to his knees. “So?”

Vanya blushes, swallows. “You’re right,” she murmurs, like she’s uncertain what precisely to say, but she also wants him to keep going. 

He raises an eyebrow, walking his hands up to lean over her. “Of course I’m right, baby. But I need you to tell me what kind of girl you are.” She tries to grind up against him, but he holds his hips back, waiting.

He knows he’s backed her into another corner, and he knows she knows it. If she admits to being greedy, he’ll take her how he wants. If she says she’s not, he'll call her a liar and take her how he wants. 

Either way, he gets what he wants. But he knows her. This is what she wants as well. 

“Greedy,” she murmurs, and at his unimpressed look, she tries again. “I’m greedy, Five,” she says, louder, and he grins. “I want you to take me. I want you to make me yours, please fuck me.” 

He grinds against her, humping against her thigh. It’s a relief to him, but torture for her, and she pleads louder, longer, her words getting dirtier and dirtier. He leans down to bite at her neck, groaning as she begs him. This is how it should be. This is perfect. 

He moves to kiss her lips, enjoying the symphony of her moans and pleas for him to _just fuck her_ between their deep, wet kisses. The way she is almost thrashing against him is too much, and he resolves to put them both out of their misery. “You need me,” he demands, a lock of his hair hanging in his face. “You need my cock in that tight little pussy of yours. You need me to tell you what to do, where to go-” He leans down, nose brushing her earlobe before he gives in a playful bite “- _who to kill_ ,” he adds, lowly. “You would beg me to forgive you, down on your knees, if you ever displeased me again. Say it.” 

“Please, Five, please forgive me, please, I need you,” she begs. “I love you.” 

He tries to smirk down at her, but he can’t manage it. She’s too beautiful, too perfect. He loves her plaintive begging, but it’s wholly unnecessary. He’ll always take care of her, forgive her the smallest and largest slights, even when they clash, even when the anger and hopelessness and desperation well up in him again, as they are so wont to do.

But he says none of this to her. She has already given him back his soul, has drained honesty from him like a sieve, and unless she asks otherwise, he’s done for the day. “Good girl,” he breathes instead, taking his cock by the hand and guiding the tip into her. Her eyes widen at the intrusion, but before she can do anything, he thrusts up. 

She wails, keening in his arms. 

“I like the way you look,” he confesses as he drags everything but the tip of his cock out of her sweet pussy before thrusting home again. “You’re so dirty for me, sweetheart. Covered in your juices and sweat, and all that blood. Blood that we drew - _together._ ” He drags his hand up her body to grasp her neck, leaving a trail of bloody fingerprints in his wake. “Perfect for me. Made for me.”

“Five,” she moans. “So full.”

He smirks, thrusting up into her. He has to anchor her to the ground with his hand around her neck to keep her from sliding across the marble floor, and she is tearing up from the sensation. “Yes, dear. You like that? How big my cock is for that tiny, sweet little pussy? I bet you’d like it even more if I filled you right up, huh?”

She reaches up, gripping his collar, then his hair. Her hands come away red, and she shudders. 

Oh no. She’s not allowed to have second thoughts. She's not allowed to regret this. “This is who I am,” he snarls, pounding into her. Her head falls back, cracking against the marble as he holds her down. “Bloody, angry, feral. But it’s all for you, sweetheart. I’m a killer, but I became one for you.” He exhales, grins. “And you became one for me, didn’t you? My sweet, timid, _powerful_ little Vanya.” 

His words have evidently done their job. She’s no longer considering their surroundings: the dead body yards away, the sticky, dried mess of blood and sweat pooling around them. She only hums, fucked out, willing to be a doll for him to arrange at this point. Being coaxed and speared open by him after years alone has overwhelmed her, and she twitches involuntarily as he pushes her milky white legs to open wider, sinking in deeper between the crevice of her thighs. He feels altogether like he’s caging her in and she’s surrounding him, and the intoxicating incongruity of it all makes his head spin. 

It only takes a couple more pumps of his hips before he’s coming hard inside her, the hand around her neck moving to press bruises into her hips before he squeezes involuntarily. The release feels glorious, and god, this is what Five wants for the rest of his life. This is what he deserves. Her chance to run, to back out, has passed. His sister is it for him: her soft, beautiful words, her devastating power, her tight, perfect pussy. 

He pulls out, moving away despite her mewls of protest to take a look. His cum is dripping from that lovely cunt, juxtaposed perfectly by the bloody handprints on her hips. 

He can’t help himself; he slides down her body, dipping his fingers in her cunt. And well, if he’s pushing his own cum back inside her in the process, that’s just a happy side effect. 

She twitches as he adds another finger. He notices her eyes go white, but he doesn't stop. “Oh, Fuh - Five, it’s too - I’m gonna - oh, no-”

“Oh, _yes_ ,” he hisses, twisting his fingers. She arches up off the floor, and he brings his other hand to tug at her bright red nipple, sore from his teeth earlier. “C’mon, sweetheart, one more. That’s it, now, tell me who you belong to.”

Vanya's entire body jerks and freezes. “I- oh god - Five, I’m gonna-”

“ _Tell me._ ”

“You,” she screams as she comes around his fingers, her second orgasm finally destroying her control and everything within a mile’s radius. The foundation of the building underneath them cracks in earnest, and Five jumps them to the dirt outside. All the bright green grass has been torn out, and the Commission gives one last groan before it crumbles into the earth, burying the bodies of their victims with it. 

Vanya moans, reaching to the back of her head. Her fingers come away with fresh blood. “Ow,” she gasps, squeezing her eyes shut. Her body is still twitching in his arms, and he can tell from the aftershocks that her sensitivity is at an all time high. 

He tuts, leaning over her and lifting her head, examining the wound. “Oh sweetheart, what did you do?” He asks softly. His fingers are still dripping with their combined fluids, so he doesn't touch the cut, but he kisses her temple in comfort. “I’m here,” he soothes, “I’ll take care of you. Focus on my heartbeat.” 

She grumbles in his arms, but she doesn’t turn away, instead pressing her head to his shoulder. He receives her gratefully, murmuring soft words of encouragement and affection until she feels centered enough to open her eyes. 

When she does, they widen at the sight. There is a pile of debris where the Commission once stood, warped scraps of metal that used to be cars littered across the driveway. There is no greenery visible to the naked eye; the carefully plotted horticulture has been torn and blown clear out of sight. The only sign of life is the two of them, naked and warm and bloody, just as it should be. 

He keeps up his soft words of nothing, an arm bracing her shoulders and another stretched across her torso, rubbing soothing circles into her thigh. She feels so good, now that he’s allowed himself to touch. The feeling of panic has passed, but he’s anxious; if he stops touching her, will it return? If she doesn’t regularly tell him she loves him, allow him to orbit around her - if she casts him off into empty space, what would he do to get her back? 

He has a track record that answers this question. He doesn’t particularly want the world to burn, but if it means she has to stay with him? 

Well. 

“You have to keep me away from people,” she says abruptly, breaking him out of more morbid thoughts. 

Five hums, hoping that she feels it from where she’s pressed against him. He wants her to find comfort in him. He wants her to find _everything_ in him. “Why’s that?” 

She gapes at him, lifting a weak arm to gesture around them. “Because of this! I did this.”

“I know,” he purrs, “it was _glorious_.” 

Vanya just stares at their surroundings, plaintive and worried. “Please, Five. That feeling… it was horrible. I felt horrible.” Five waits, watching her carefully. “And I liked it,” she admits, the words reluctant and brutally honest, turning her tortured gaze on him. “Please, you’re the only one I trust to be close to me.” 

Five pulls her into him further, pressing her face against his neck. “You know I’ll only ever do what’s best for you,” he murmurs, holding her tighter when she tries to push away to look up at him. Keeping her away from the world suits his purposes just fine.

There is a long silence, then: “tell me something,” she asks, pushing at him until he lays back in the dirt, pulling her to lay on top of him. 

“Anything.” 

She swallows, lips pressing against his collarbone. He cards his free hand through her soft, dirty, tangled hair, and she returns the favor by curling her fingers into the hairs at the base of his neck. “Would you really have let the apocalypse happen?” She asks, soft and sweet and almost innocent, though he can hear the undercurrent of fear in her words. “If it meant killing me?”

“What do you want me to say?” He says, gently, taking her thigh and pulling her over him further, until their chests are pressed together. 

She allows herself to be rolled over, pressing up against him and staring into his eyes. He gazes back, as open and honest as he’ll ever be. If she knows him at all, she knows the answer to this question. “Lie to me,” she whispers. 

Five pauses, then: “No one is more important than the end of the world,” he says, and each word turns to ash in his mouth as his breath becomes sound. 

Vanya slides up his body a little more to press their foreheads together, doe eyes gazing down into his. She tugs on a piece of his hair. Soon, they will clean up. They’ll wash the blood and death from their bodies and torch what’s left of the building and collapse in Vanya’s tiny bed together, exhausted. Tomorrow, he’ll take her to the house he bought just for them - far away from anyone else who might come between them. After, he’ll make good on his promise to stay with her forever. Because that’s his reward.

For now, she knows him, and that’s enough.

“Liar.”

-

_ You wonder what he’s thinking when he shivers like that. _

_ What can you tell me, what could you possibly _

_tell me?_ _Sure, it’s good to feel things, and if it hurts, we’re doing it_

_ to ourselves, or so the saying goes, but there should be _

_ a different music here. There should be just one safe place _

_ in the world, I mean _

_ this world. People get hurt here. People fall down and stay down and I don’t like _

_ the way the song goes. _

_ You, the moon. You, the road. You, the little flowers _

_ by the side of the road. You keep singing along to that song I hate. Stop singing. _

**Author's Note:**

> *hides*


End file.
